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£S3tl 

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[Reprinted from the u Indian Antiquary .”] 


YALABHI GRANTS. 

.tP'T 

BY Dr. G. BUHLER, C.I.E. 




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VALABH1 GRANTS. 


COLLECT/®#* 

Xa. XYIL— A Grant of Siladitya II, 
DATED SamYAT 352. 

T HE subjoined grant of Siladitya II, a 
photograph of which was made over to me 
fey Dr. Burgess, is written on two plates measur¬ 
ing 12| inches by 13 j. The seal has been lost, 
but the preservation of the document is in other 
respects perfect. The characters differ to a 
■certain extent from those of the other giants 
of the Valabhians. For side by side with the 
stiff, antiquated letters used for inscriptions, 
they show a number of forms which have been 
taken from the literary alphabet used between 
400—600 a.d. The most remarkable in¬ 

stances of this kind are—1, the use of a sign, 
looking like the Valabhi na £ for Jed, espe¬ 
cially in compound letters ; see e.g. PI. I. L 14, 
1. 29; 2, the use of the sign for the same 
letter PL II. L 6, in the word ratndlaukdrena ; 
3, the use of the ordinary ^ for vd, PL II. 1. 15 
in the word chakravala^ 4, the use of J for 
ra, e.g. PL IL 1. 3, ruchira ; 5, the use of J or 
L for n in compound letters, and nri, e.g. Pl. I. 
IL 14,15; 6, the use of a horizontal stroke above 



4 


a letter, in order to indicate tlie absence of m 
Towel, Pl. I. 14 and II. 19. 

These peculiarities furnish an important con¬ 
tribution to the history of Indian epigraphy, and 
confirm what I asserted in my article on the 
Kfivi plate of Jayabhata and the Umeta &asana 
of D&dda II, and what has since been clearly 
demonstrated by Professor Max Muller’s dis¬ 
covery of old MSS. in Japan, viz. that neither 
the ancient G-urjjaras nor the princes and inhabi¬ 
tants used in common life and for literary pur¬ 
poses the clumsy characters which appear on the- 
copper-plates and stone inscriptions. A variety 
of alphabets existed at the same time-, the use 
of which probably varied according to the occu¬ 
pation and the education of the writers. Then, 
as was the case until lately, the learned Brah¬ 
mans, the merchants'who followed the ortho¬ 
dox faith, the Bauddhas, the Jainas and 
the professional writers ( Mrkum ), had each- 
their own peculiar alphabet or variety of 
letters, derived from the various schools ( lekha - 
said ) to which they went. I will now add 
that this state of things certainly existed in 
times of the Andhra king Pulmmayi, and 
may even go back to the times of Asoka. 
It is important to repeat these fundamental 
principles of Indian epigraphy again and 
again, because some Sanskritists, especially 
those who possess a superficial knowledge of 
inscriptions only, will- even now base impor- 


5 


tant chronological conclasions on the occur¬ 
rence of what they are pleased to call late or later 
forms of single letters in ancient inscriptions. 

But to- return to our grant, it shows also 
very peculiar forms for ru and ru, which, as the 
u and u have been attached to the top of the 
ra, look very much like ga and m Pl. I. 

I. 4, PI. I. 1. 13, etc. Several times a letter, 
resembling ya 0|j occurs for va, which possibly 
may be something more than a mere mistake. 
The letter da invariably shows a loop in its 
long drawn tail and a curve to the right at the 
top. The letters dlia, va and cha are frequently 
not to be distinguished from each other. 

As we already possess grants of Slladitya 

II, dated Samvat 348 and 356, the present docu¬ 
ment, which is dated on the first day of the 
bright half of Bhadrapada 352, adds no fresh 
information to our knowledge of the history 
of ValabhL The object of the grant is to 
record the gift of a field consisting of two 
pieces of land to Magopadatta , , . .(?), 
son of Kikkaka (Kikabhai), a Brahman of 
the Gr a r g y a-g o t r a, who studied the Yajur- 

veda. The donee lived at Valabhi, but was 
* 

a native of Anandapura, i.e. probably 
of Vadnagar. If the latter identification is 
-correct, we have here another instance of 
-the occurrence of the Nagar Brahmans in 
WalabhL The field was in the village of 
P h u s h a, which was in Surashtrah or 



6 


Sorafch, and belonged to a town, tbename of 
which is not quite plain. The Dutaka was a 
rajaputra Dhruvasena, to judge from his 
name, a member of the royal family. I may 
mention here that a new R-athor grant, which 
will be published hereafter, clearly shows that 
Dutaka does not mean ‘ executive officer,’ as I 
have usually translated it. It means, as is often 
the case, ‘messenger’ or ‘ deputy,’ i.e. the person 
entrusted with the execution of the grant. 

The writer is the chief secretary, the illus¬ 
trious A n a h i 1 a, the son of the chief secre¬ 
tary, the illustrious Skandabhata. Anahila, 
served already KharagrahalL 















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27, read °<£nf<T°; ^°fr°.—L. 28, read °4 fF^T- 1<. 30, read °^°. 


















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HrfcTf. L. 23, read IWTf. L. 24, read t. 26, read <5%:. 











(.7) 3 n% 3 JFr j *af«n^ri:% 5?4 sropi^ «pr- 



13 L. 27, dele read Vf;°^T°; ^^; °^.° R^°; °HfrRT°; ^f^IrTj *[£. L. 30, read fFTSRT 

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